I am sitting by the computer a few hours before the
Wales England match. I am thinking about how popular culture and
sport intertwine into political effects and perceptions. In 1966 I
was 8 I remember watching England defeat Germany in the World Cup of
1966. It has ofteb been claimed that the England victory helped
Harold Wilson defeat Edward Heath in the general election. Now I
wonder ho wthe fate of England in UEFA will effect next Thursday
Referendum. I can construct scenarios in which England do well and
people proud of success embrace Europe. I can equally see a scenario
in which English success leads to a xenophobic nationalism that has
the reverse effect. We have already heard the drunken English thugs
chant for Brexit. Who is too blame for this the leave campaign/ UKIP
and Farage? Or indeed is large sections of society left behind by
globalisation and desperately seeking an identity?
My shadow side wants to see England humiliated by Wales
at football. I was brought up in England and given an English accent
by the vile prep school I went to. Yet I am Welsh because my
ancestors left Wales because of the English State. I have Irish,
Jewish and Southern European routes as well. All of my life I have
disliked the English State and its ruling class. I do not dislike the
English in a xenophobic way I dislike the history and brutality of
the Anglo-Norman state. Of its conquest of Wales and Ireland , of how
its colonial future as the British Empire was lab tested in a dish on
Wales and Ireland. I hope for a defeat of England this afternoon at
least 2-0 would be great.
I began to reflect on the Lefts view of sport. Over the
last 35 years I have often heard the view that organised sport was
the new "opium of the people" designed to keep the masses
docile and to distract people away from the real issues. I thought of
a very different tradition in South America, where the left organised
on the terraces, where Che Guevara played Rugby and wrote a sports
column in a newspaper, where the French Philosopher Albert Camus was
a keen footballer and a lover of the sun.
I remember some ten years ago we in Swansea Green Party
celebrated and congratulated Swansea on the erection of the statue of
John Charles, the prominent sports-figure of the area. I remember
getting more positive comments about that one press story than any
other story we had published that year. People congratulated the
party on understanding the significance of John Charles. At the next
Green Party meeting I was criticised by a former member of the party
for daring to wade into such a minor issue. Some weeks ago I
published a Green Dragon story on Welsh sporting success on a local
party web site and got told off once more. I really think that sport
is a blind spot for the Left and for Ecosocialists in general.
Perhaps its because we were once the serious ones, who were useless
at team games, or like me because my sight was lousy.....I dont
know....perhaps we consider ourselves above it all. I do know those
who celebrate great works of literature often forget that in
Elizabethan England all classes and people attended the plays of
Shakespeare and the like. Perhaps we experience a major disconnect
between high culture and popular culture.?
Its no accident that Maradona has a tattoo of Che
Guevara, its no accident that in the 1970's the far right recruited
on the terraces of the football match.
Organised sport would enable criticism by us to be made
of the corporations
that the Premier League is, the facts that many ordinary
people can no longer afford to watch Rugby or Football live, to
expose the schemes of Rupert Murdoch and his ilk. I wonder if we
could appreciate this.
Then there is the subtext that we could comment on. As
an exile returning to Wales I had forgotten that Rugby was the sport
of ordinary Welsh people, it England Rugby is the game of the Public
Schools and the Old Grammar schools, of the English ruling class.
Thats why its great to see England humiliated by a subject nation and
a former colonial state. Its the return of the repressed, its a
collapse of the corporate campaign of the English brand, tied to big
business, the denial of the role of ordinary people in sport.
There is a major role for the left to be involved in
sport it would enable us to ask questions on the role of sport in
promoting notions of gender and sexuality and of power. Women's
football and Rugby has far to go in achieving parity with that of
men. The obscene payments made to Premier League players illustrates
inequality of income, the attitude to gay players is shocking
particularly in the Premier League.
We fail to understand Sport ion the left, yet fitness,
health and self confidence is the key to empowerment and self
realisation. Sport deserves to be an area the left can get its ideas
across in. Change begins when popular culture is understood and
sneered at. We need to grasp this point to began real engagement.
Even the popular culture of the Big Brother house teaches us much
about political power and group psychology. I make a plea for us to
understand and act.
Some months ago we were in a taxi chatting about
politics to the driver. His analysis was radical and left wing but he
hated politicians. He was clearly on the left but did not see it this
way at all. Sport offers a way to reconnect, to learn the language,
to connect popular culture and high culture and to stop us all within
the left appearing smug, condescending and to realise the smug
condescending attitude we have comes from is our own individual
psychology..
Perhaps next Thursday vote will be influenced by
Englands performance, perhaps A Welsh victory will have massive
implications for the future. This morning I was talking to a friend
who is former Green Party candidate. They told me that if there was
Brexit they would start a campaign for an independent Welsh Eco
socialist Republic. I had made the same decision a few weeks ago. Let
us await the unitended historical consequences of events this
afternoon and over the next week. Who will Neil Hamilton Shout for
this afternoon. Will he still think England is Jolly D! I would love
to know..........
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